App and Software News

It's fair to say that Google Docs has taken big slices out of the market that Microsoft Office used to utterly dominate. For one, Google Docs is free. But it's a polished product in its own right, with a streamlined and intuitive interface, solid collaboration tools and a presence in the cloud that lets you access Google Docs within a web browser from almost any phone, tablet or PC that has an internet connection.

Over the past couple years, the Android ecosystem has seen a rise of apps that pretend to be one thing while doing quite another. Sometimes the real purpose of the app is to harvest your personal data and sell it to intermediaries who sell it to advertisers, malicious hackers or anyone else who can afford the fee.

When you have a text-based conversation on a social network like Facebook or Twitter, there's a variety of ways that the platform can display the back-and-forth flow of your interactions. One method is called "nesting," where an indent communicates to the user that a given comment or question is a direct response to the one right above it.

A new update to Facebook's Android app adds an option that lets you turn off location sharing even when the app isn't running. Prior to this update, Android users of the app had no way to tell Facebook to stop tracking their location once the app was no longer open or active.

Rolling out in the latest version of Google Maps for iOS, a new feature lets you follow any business that you like or want to track. By following a business, you can then see updates and information about new offers, promotions, events and other items that may appeal to you.... Read More »

WhatsApp's newest feature -- the ability to lock the app with Face ID or Touch ID -- appears to have a major security flaw.

A Reddit user discovered the issue on iOS when using the share sheet (the menu that pops up when you tap the share icon in an app) of to open WhatsApp. Unless you've set your app to require biometric login immediately, the time interval will reset, and the Face ID or Touch ID won't... Read More »

Thanks to an expanded Wi-Fi roaming agreement with Boingo Wireless, AT&T is now offering subscribers a seamless and complimentary Wi-Fi connection at 80-plus locations nationwide, including airports, military bases and additional venues featuring Boingo's Passpoint-certified networks.

"Boingo's Passpoint footprint allows us to connect millions in more locations than ever, making it easier for travelers and troops to talk, text and stream over Wi-Fi," said JR Wilson, AT&T's... Read More »

If you like board games, here's one you probably should check out. It's called Ludo King. Developed in India, Ludo is based on a centuries-old Indian game called Pachisi. And the roots of the game stretch back 3,000 years. For a game to hang around three millennia, it has to be fun, and as the world's internet population is finding out, Ludo certainly has an addictive quality.

If you want to create some safety measures to protect your important files, putting them in the cloud confers a number of advantages: You can access these files from anywhere, on a variety of devices; share and sometimes collaborate in real time; and restore files if something happens to your computer or its storage devices.

In an age where privileged information can spill onto the internet in a matter of minutes, it's difficult for a tech company to keep a lid on future plans. So while Google has been sending out invitations to the tech media over the last 24 hours to attend a presentation next month at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the details of its presentation appear deliberately vague.

Collin Riley Howard, a UC Santa Cruz student, was indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple charges last week for distribution and possession with the intent to distribute drugs like meth and cocaine. The twist? Howard, 18, developed an iPhone app to help him.

Tapatalk's forum app is offering a new home for soon to be platform-less Google+ communities. The company announced Wednesday that moderators and owners of communities can migrate their data to Tapatalk for free.

Moderators or owners of Google+ communities can fill out a form to request a migration to Tapatalk, the company said in a release Wednesday. Users will see a preview of what their community will look like in Tapatalk Groups.

A few years ago, Google began implementing and promoting a common look-and-feel for Android apps that it called Material Design. This aesthetic standard was minimalistic, but each app had a splash of color coding: For example, Docs was blue, Sheets was green and Gmail was red.

Now Google is forging ahead with Material Design 2, which take away almost all color from the company's apps, and the results for the new Android version of the Gmail mobile app (download for iOS... Read More »

Valve has pulled the plug on the video section of its Steam store menu and will weed out non-gaming content such as movies and TV shows.

The reason? People simply weren't watching non-gaming videos, Valve said Tuesday in a blog post on the game-streaming site. Valve plans to refocus Steam on content that's directly related to games and accessories.

Turning to apps like Amazon (download for iOS and Android), Target (download for iOS and Android) or Walmart (download for iOS and Android) for product recommendations is like turning to Facebook (download for iOS and Android) quizzes to learn more about yourself, Trump's Twitter (download for iOS and Android) assertions to make sense of climate change or paid Instagram (download for iOS and Android) influencers for advice on... Read More »

Music streaming services are in a serious fight to secure their territory, and one of their most powerful tools is sheer availability. Pandora (download for iOS or Android) is an oft-cited example; it's so ubiquitous that you can get it in cars that predate Android Auto and Apple CarPlay by several years, and it arguably pioneered the driving-friendly interfaces that are common in many mobile apps today.

A lot of mental and physical changes come with turning 50 years old. As your body starts to truly show signs of aging like lesser muscle function, diminished healing abilities and slower blood flow, you may have to adjust your workout regiment (or begin one).

Flip50 (download for iOS or Android) can help create a healthy lifestyle for seniors--even if you're not feeling up to a higher-intensity workout or you're short on time.

While Google Chrome is probably the most popular web browser in the world (and not without reason), it can't be everything for every user. In fact, the mobile version has never supported ad blockers, the presence of which has been a major selling point for competitors like Opera, DuckDuckGo, Brave and Ghostery.